Everybody's Got the Right to be Happy...

…everybody’s got the right to their dreams.

So go the haunting lyrics to the opening number of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, the brilliant, haunting, disturbing, funny musical running through November 2 at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center. http://www.ephrataperformingartscenter.com/index.php

As those who have read this blog in the past (thank you!) know, I often write about my involvement in this little gem of a community theater in Lancaster County. I have been working there since 2003, having been a subscriber since 2000.

In this show, I am again acting as assistant stage manager. Historically I’ve been on stage—mostly in ensemble or small roles, but occasionally in more featured roles. I have to say that working backstage is as rewarding in a slightly different way as being on stage. There is a more general connection with the piece as a whole than acting really brings. In this capacity, I feel a sort of ownership of the whole, not in a possessive or a generative way, but in a very visceral and relational way. The draw of this whole paradoxical piece is that it uses humor and high drama and history and hauntingly beautiful music to tell this story. That is a large part of what makes it palatable—and, in fact, compelling.

This piece is admittedly not everyone's cup of tea, and it's probably one of Sondheim's lesser performed works. Some might suppose that it glorifies those who killed or tried to kill Presidents—namely John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, Guiseppe Zangara, Samuel Byck, Sarah Jane Moore, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, John Hinckley, and Lee Harvey Oswald. But it honestly doesn't. What it does is make these dark characters more human. And despite the atrocities that they committed, we cannot lose sight of the fact that they were and are human.

We may never fully understand their thoughts, feelings, or motivations for assassination (or attempted assassination), but this riveting show forces us to at least consider them. Rather than simply write these infamous characters off as "evil," we actually find ourselves relating to them. Granted, most of us won't relate to the point of considering such drastic measures, but I think we have to admit to empathizing with the loneliness, desperation, frustration, anger, pain, and disillusion that they suffered. And while we certainly cannot condone or fully understand the way that they acted upon these drives, I think we all have to admit to occasionally feeling overwhelmed by these very forces.

And isn't this the very definition of compassion? As all great art does, this show compels us to look square in the face of some ugly parts of ourselves. And to laugh at them. And to cry over them. To mourn them. And in some strange way to celebrate them. Because as dark and dangerous as some of these things are, they are woven into the fabric of our humanity. We may not think that we are capable of something so grand and scandalous as assassination (and most of us probably are not!), but we are very capable of smaller, more insidious harm to each other. I'm sure we've all been on the receiving as well as the giving end of our share of those.

So we can all relate to the title of one of the more poignant numbers in the show: "Something Just Broke." Once we recognize this, maybe we all can participate in helping to put some of the pieces back together.